In Saturday night’s loss the Nationals snapped a dubious streak of allowing a run to the opposition in the first inning. However they started a new streak on Sunday afternoon as Livan Hernandez gave up two runs in the first and put the offense in a hole before they even had a chance to hit.
“It’s never good, you obviously want to be able to jump out to an early lead,” Ryan Zimmerman said. “But sometimes you’ve got to battle from behind.”
Back to back walks really hurt Hernandez in the first as that allowed Travis Ishikawa to step up to the plate with the bases loaded. He knocked a two run single right field to give the Giants the lead. They would not relinquish it the rest of the way.
Hernandez would give up an additional three runs in the third inning to put the Nats even farther behind. This was just what young lefty Madison Bumgarner needed as he went six innings, giving up just an earned run.
Hernandez’s analysis of his start was fairly to the point in terms of where things went wrong.
“It was bad, I did not pitch good,” he said. “Two bad innings.”
In the first half of the game, the Nationals were able to get runners on base but double play balls killed them early going. In the first and second innings San Francisco turned two to take the wind out of Washington’s sails.
A late inning rally came up short as the bases were loaded for Ivan Rodriguez and Josh Willingham in the seventh but neither was able to come through for the big hit.
“They made the necessary pitches, they rallied on us early twice, took a nice lead on us,” Manager Jim Riggleman said. “Our guys got after it…we just came up short each time.”
The Nationals did pick up two runs in the seventh but the bullpen gave one back up right away.
In the ninth inning, Matt Capps came to the mound in a non-save situation to get a bit of work in before he makes his first ever appearance at the All-Star Game in Anaheim. Capps shut down the Giants but it meant little as the Nationals were down four runs.
A loss was probably not how Washington wanted to finish the first half of the season. But with the offense kept off balance by a good pitcher and their starting pitcher knocked around early, it should not come as much of a surprise.
“It should leave a sour taste, when you lose it should be a sour taste” Riggleman said. “The upside is that we played another clean game, had a lot of good at bats...there were a lot of subtle things that say we played good baseball.”
You can reach this staff writer at slindauer@theeagleonline.com.
